...a photoBook is an autonomous art form, comparable with a piece of sculpture, a play or a film. The photographs lose their own photographic character as things 'in themselves' and become parts, translated into printing ink, of a dramatic event called a book...
- Dutch photography critic Ralph Prins

zondag 30 november 2008

Hamar woman, Omo Valley, EthiopiaA young woman from the Hamar tribe attends the Dimeka market. In the past, the blue beads in her traditional head band and necklace had more than an aesthetic function; they were also used as a form of currency between neighbours and tribes. Held weekly, the Dimeka market is a place where a number of different tribes meet to trade, notably the Hamar and Karo.

Living Africa - Steve Bloom expresses the essence and the diversity of this gigantic continent. From the tallest sand dunes in the world to the swirling markets of Ethiopia to the windswept rocks and gullies of South Africa‘s Table Mountain, he captures the colours and cultures of Africa today. 236 photographs of Africa‘s peoples and wildlife encapsulate the vibrancy of tribal traditions and the beauty of the landscape. In a series of essays, Bloom combines vivid personal experience with a passionate articulation of the challenges faced by Africa‘s people and environment in the 21st century. Everywhere is apparent his deep affection and affinity for the continent where he grew up, and to which he has felt compelled to return throughout his life.

Karo gathering - Omo Valley, EthiopiaKaro people differentiate themselves from neighbouring tribes by excelling in body painting. They use ochre, chalk, charcoal and pulverised mineral rock to achieve a variety of colours which include orange, white, black, yellow and red. Body artists use vibrant designs to accentuate fine facial features and enhance their graceful movements.

Suri woman - Omo Valley, EthiopiaA woman is caught unawares while playing with her lower lip, stretched to accommodate a lip plate.

Hamar woman, Omo Valley, EthiopiaA young woman from the Hamar tribe attends the Dimeka market. In the past, the blue beads in her traditional head band and necklace had more than an aesthetic function; they were also used as a form of currency between neighbours and tribes. Held weekly, the Dimeka market is a place where a number of different tribes meet to trade, notably the Hamar and Karo.

Living Africa - Steve Bloom expresses the essence and the diversity of this gigantic continent. From the tallest sand dunes in the world to the swirling markets of Ethiopia to the windswept rocks and gullies of South Africa‘s Table Mountain, he captures the colours and cultures of Africa today. 236 photographs of Africa‘s peoples and wildlife encapsulate the vibrancy of tribal traditions and the beauty of the landscape. In a series of essays, Bloom combines vivid personal experience with a passionate articulation of the challenges faced by Africa‘s people and environment in the 21st century. Everywhere is apparent his deep affection and affinity for the continent where he grew up, and to which he has felt compelled to return throughout his life.

Karo gathering - Omo Valley, EthiopiaKaro people differentiate themselves from neighbouring tribes by excelling in body painting. They use ochre, chalk, charcoal and pulverised mineral rock to achieve a variety of colours which include orange, white, black, yellow and red. Body artists use vibrant designs to accentuate fine facial features and enhance their graceful movements.

Suri woman - Omo Valley, EthiopiaA woman is caught unawares while playing with her lower lip, stretched to accommodate a lip plate.

In 1986 a photography book called Paradiso Stills by Max Natkiel appeared. It was a selection of the thousands of portraits he made of visitors—mostly snotty nosed punks—to the famed halls of pop temple Paradiso. In the years that passed, many of these photographs reached iconic status, and good luck to anyone trying to find a copy of this book without paying a small fortune. Film-maker Marc Geerards ended up tracking down 200 of these people, asking them to pose again for a film camera and in a setting of their own choosing. The result is the hypnotic and eerie film Paradiso Stills / Paradiso Stilllives .De film ‘Paradiso Stills/Paradiso Stilllives’ van Marc Geerards is gebaseerd op het werk van de Nederlandse fotograaf Max Natkiel. Die maakte tussen 1980 en 1985 portretfoto’s van duizenden bezoekers van Paradiso, overwegend tieners en pubers die deel uitmaakten van de punkbeweging. Geerards spoorde 25 jaar later 250 van deze mensen op en liet hen opnieuw poseren, ditmaal voor een filmcamera.

Short introduction in Dutch, English and French, otherwise just pictures without text. b/w-photographs of punks and other youngsters at the Paradiso, an international meeting-centre of sub-culture in Amsterdam. One of the fanatic visitors of Paradiso was Max Natkiel. From 1980 onwards he decided to bring his camera along, when going to concerts and other occasions, as if to try and stop time. He was only just in time to capture the end of the first punk-wave and the transition into the eighties, with its diversity of Skins, Rude Boys, Rasta's, Rockers, Mollucans, Teds, Mods, Autonomists, Heavy Metal Hardrockers and once more the Punks.

vrijdag 28 november 2008

Document Nederland: Rising Waters Marnix Goossensphotographs Dutch ways to keep it dry. This year Marnix Goossens has been granted the distinguished documentary assignment Document Nederland by the Rijksmuseum and NRC Handelsblad. He portrays the tendency of the Dutch to keep on seeking new relationships with ever-rising water. Goossens, who has acquired a reputation for his poetic and humorous way of working, has aimed his camera at earthly problems caused by climate change and arising sea level.

Water in PhotographyAs a counterpart and supplement to this exhibition, Huis Marseille'sown program will also revolve around the theme of water. A small retrospective of water-related photography from the past has been compiled from the Rijksmuseum's rich photo collections. In contrast to this 'engineer's outlook', another presentation provides a contemporary view of water as a phenomenon and source of inspiration, with photographs by Balthasar Burkhard, Naoya Hatakeyama, Roni Horn, Asako Narahashiand Syoin Kajii.

Document Nederland: Rising Waters Marnix Goossensphotographs Dutch ways to keep it dry. This year Marnix Goossens has been granted the distinguished documentary assignment Document Nederland by the Rijksmuseum and NRC Handelsblad. He portrays the tendency of the Dutch to keep on seeking new relationships with ever-rising water. Goossens, who has acquired a reputation for his poetic and humorous way of working, has aimed his camera at earthly problems caused by climate change and arising sea level.

Water in PhotographyAs a counterpart and supplement to this exhibition, Huis Marseille'sown program will also revolve around the theme of water. A small retrospective of water-related photography from the past has been compiled from the Rijksmuseum's rich photo collections. In contrast to this 'engineer's outlook', another presentation provides a contemporary view of water as a phenomenon and source of inspiration, with photographs by Balthasar Burkhard, Naoya Hatakeyama, Roni Horn, Asako Narahashiand Syoin Kajii.

"Sergio Larrain began photographing the famous Chilean port in the 1950s but it was not until 1963 that he spent more time there, this time, in the company of the poet Pablo Neruda. The text and photographs in Valparaiso were published in the journal Du in 1966. But it had to wait until 1991 before it was published as a book, which has since gained a cult following. Not only did Sergio Larrain ceaselessly climb the narrow streets, the stairs, and the hills of this city frozen in time, but he also shed light on an entire bohemian lifestyle in the neighborhoods nearby the port, which then counted some one hundred brothels and cabarets. The result is a series of pictures that has become an essential reference in the work of this photographer who escapes categorization."--Magnum Photos

Also see Jeff Ladd's piece on Larrain, posted on his always excellent photobook blog, 5B4

Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) has been photographing for nearly sixty years. A 1967 exhibition of his work, along with that of Diane Arbus and Gary Winograd, at New York's Museum of Modern Art, propelled him into the front ranks of American photographers. He has worked in series over the years, but whether photographing people, landscapes, cityscapes, or nature, his focus has been on American subject matter and his artistry one of subtle wit, keen observation, and disciplined understatement.

Friedlander's most recent series, Sticks and Stones, photographed over a twelve year period, consists of cityscapes observed not for their glamour or urban buzz, but with an emphasis on the mundane. A selection of thirty-four (from the collection of 192) of these black and white photographs, printed in uniform squares of about about fifteen inches, make up the current exhibition at Fraenkel Gallery.

The photographs are completely devoid of images of people, though the presence of people is palpable in the way the the images cumulatively define what people have created as their urban and suburban visual environments. Some of the photographs were taken from the inside of a car, suggesting the perhaps dominant viewpoint from which Americans observe their surroundings. "Las Vegas," for example, shows the massed highrises of fantasy-fulfillment hotels through the driver's window, but also slyly exposes the more ordinary, lowrise buildings caught in the side-view mirror. "Great Falls, Montana" shows a clean-lined modern, brick factory with aluminum framed-windows of reflective glass. The effect is to make the interior of the building a complete mystery, at the same time contrasting it with the older buildings across the street, seen reflected in the glass.

Indeed, contrast is the principal subtext of these works. "Arkansas" has a flatbed truck moving a mobile home down the street of a town. In the rear there's the modest neoclassical facade of a small commercial building; in the foreground, an elaborate street clock rests on an Ionic pedestal. Together the images speak to the modesty of small town life as well as its striving for something grander. "San Diego" shows nondescript buildings and some dumpsters arrayed in a parking lot, but at the curb is a small garden of flowers protected by a low picket-type fence. One of the "New York City" photos looks through a rooftop opening in an older building, ornamented with sophisticated brickwork and a large architectural urn on a pedestal; the building seen in the distance is a colorless commercial curtain-wall high rise.

Sometimes Friedlander foregoes the thematic, simply finding compositional interest in the accidental juxtaposition of diverse elements, as in "Bismarck, North Dakota" or "Tarrytown," the latter contrasting the textures of brick in the foreground building with the frame structure across the street, the street itself on a sloping hill that provides a strong angular element, and the shadows of electrical wires thrown on the frame facade adding further complexities with their linear tracery. November 7, 2004 by Arthur LazereRead more...

Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) has been photographing for nearly sixty years. A 1967 exhibition of his work, along with that of Diane Arbus and Gary Winograd, at New York's Museum of Modern Art, propelled him into the front ranks of American photographers. He has worked in series over the years, but whether photographing people, landscapes, cityscapes, or nature, his focus has been on American subject matter and his artistry one of subtle wit, keen observation, and disciplined understatement.

Friedlander's most recent series, Sticks and Stones, photographed over a twelve year period, consists of cityscapes observed not for their glamour or urban buzz, but with an emphasis on the mundane. A selection of thirty-four (from the collection of 192) of these black and white photographs, printed in uniform squares of about about fifteen inches, make up the current exhibition at Fraenkel Gallery.

The photographs are completely devoid of images of people, though the presence of people is palpable in the way the the images cumulatively define what people have created as their urban and suburban visual environments. Some of the photographs were taken from the inside of a car, suggesting the perhaps dominant viewpoint from which Americans observe their surroundings. "Las Vegas," for example, shows the massed highrises of fantasy-fulfillment hotels through the driver's window, but also slyly exposes the more ordinary, lowrise buildings caught in the side-view mirror. "Great Falls, Montana" shows a clean-lined modern, brick factory with aluminum framed-windows of reflective glass. The effect is to make the interior of the building a complete mystery, at the same time contrasting it with the older buildings across the street, seen reflected in the glass.

Indeed, contrast is the principal subtext of these works. "Arkansas" has a flatbed truck moving a mobile home down the street of a town. In the rear there's the modest neoclassical facade of a small commercial building; in the foreground, an elaborate street clock rests on an Ionic pedestal. Together the images speak to the modesty of small town life as well as its striving for something grander. "San Diego" shows nondescript buildings and some dumpsters arrayed in a parking lot, but at the curb is a small garden of flowers protected by a low picket-type fence. One of the "New York City" photos looks through a rooftop opening in an older building, ornamented with sophisticated brickwork and a large architectural urn on a pedestal; the building seen in the distance is a colorless commercial curtain-wall high rise.

Sometimes Friedlander foregoes the thematic, simply finding compositional interest in the accidental juxtaposition of diverse elements, as in "Bismarck, North Dakota" or "Tarrytown," the latter contrasting the textures of brick in the foreground building with the frame structure across the street, the street itself on a sloping hill that provides a strong angular element, and the shadows of electrical wires thrown on the frame facade adding further complexities with their linear tracery. November 7, 2004 by Arthur LazereRead more...